Lorenzo Rocco

Educational Standards in Private and Public Schools

We show that, when school quality is measured by the educational standard and attaining the standard requires costly effort, secondary education needs not be a hierarchy with private schools offering better quality than public schools, as in Epple and Romano, 1998. An alternative configuration, with public schools offering a higher educational standard than private schools, is also possible, in spite of the fact that tuition levied by private schools is strictly positive. In our model, private schools can offer a lower educational standard at a positive price because they attract students with a relatively high cost of effort, who would find the high standards of the public school excessively demanding. With the key parameters calibrated on the available micro-econometric evidence from the US, our model predicts that majority voting in the US supports a system with high quality private schools and low quality public schools, as assumed by Epple and Romano, 1998. This system, however, is not the one that would be selected by the social planner, who prefers high quality public schools combined with low quality private schools.

From social capital to health--and back

We assess the causal relationship between health and social capital, measured by generalized trust, both at the individual and the community level. The paper contributes to the literature in two ways: it tackles the problems of endogeneity and reverse causation between social capital and health by estimating a simultaneous equation model, and it explicitly accounts for mis-reporting in self-reported trust. The inter-relationship is tested using data from the first four waves of the European Social Survey for 25 European countries, supplemented by regional data from Eurostat. Our estimates show that a causal and positive relationship between self-perceived health and social capital does exist and that it acts in both directions. In addition, the magnitude of the structural coefficients suggests that individual social capital is a strong determinant of health, whereas community level social capital plays a considerably smaller role in determining health.

When the Cat is Near, the Mice Won't Play: The Effect of External Examiners in Italian Schools

We use a natural experiment to show that the presence of an external examiner has both a direct and an indirect negative effect on the performance of monitored classes in standardised educational tests. The direct effect is the difference in the test performance between classes of the same school with and without external examiners. The indirect effect is the difference in performance between un-monitored classes in schools with an external examiner and un-monitored classes in schools without external monitoring. We find that the overall effect of having an external examiner in the class is to reduce the proportion of correct answers by 5.5 to 8.5% – depending on the grade and the test – with respect to classes in schools with no external monitor. The direct and indirect effects range between 4.3 and 6.6% and between 1.2 and 1.9% respectively. Using additional supporting evidence, we argue that the negative impact of the presence of an external examiner on measured test scores is due to reduced cheating (by students and/or teachers) rather than to the negative effects of anxiety or distraction from having a stranger in the class.

Social capital and self-reported general and mental health in nine Former Soviet Union countries.

Social capital has been proposed as a potentially important contributor to health, yet most of the existing research tends to ignore the challenge of assessing causality in this relationship. We deal with this issue by employing various instrumental variable estimation techniques. We apply the analysis to a set of nine former Soviet countries, using a unique multi-country household survey specifically designed for this region. Our results confirm that there appears to be a causal association running from several dimensions of individual social capital to general and mental health. Individual trust appears to be more strongly related to general health, while social isolation- to mental health. In addition, social support and trust seem to be more important determinants of health than the social capital dimensions that facilitate solidarity and collective action. Our findings are remarkably robust to a range of different specifications, including the use of instrumental variables. Certain interaction effects are also found: for instance, untrusting people who live in communities with higher aggregate level of trust are even less likely to experience good health than untrusting people living in the reference communities.

The influence of social capital on health in eight former Soviet countries: why does it differ?

Background Previous research has identified the role of social capital in explaining variations in health in the countries of the former Soviet Union. This study explores whether the benefits of social capital vary among these countries and why. Methods The impact of micro social capital (trust, membership and social isolation) on individual health was estimated in each of eight former Soviet republics using instrumental variables to overcome methodological hazards such as endogeneity and reverse causality. Interactions with institutional variables (voice and accountability, effectiveness of the legal system, informal economy) and social protection variables (employment protection, old age and disability benefits, sickness and health benefits) were examined. Results Most social capital indicators, in most countries, are associated with better health but the magnitude and significance of the impact differ between countries. Some of this variation can be explained by interacting social capital indicators with measures of institutional quality, with membership of organisations bringing greater benefit for health in countries where civil liberties are stronger, whereas social isolation has more adverse consequences where there is a large informal economy. A lesser amount is explained by the interaction of social capital indicators with selected measures of social protection. Conclusion When considering interventions to improve social capital as a means of improving population health, it seems advisable to take into account the influence of macrocontextual variables, in order not to overstate or understate the likely impact of the intervention.

The contribution of urbanization to non-communicable diseases: Evidence from 173 countries from 1980 to 2008

&NA; It is widely believed that the expanding burden of non‐communicable diseases (NCDs) is in no small part the result of major macro‐level determinants. We use a large amount of new data, to explore in particular the role played by urbanization – the process of the population shifting from rural to urban areas within countries – in affecting four important drivers of NCDs world‐wide: diabetes prevalence, as well as average body mass index (BMI), total cholesterol level and systolic blood pressure. Urbanization is seen by many as a double‐edged sword: while its beneficial economic effects are widely acknowledged, it is commonly alleged to produce adverse side effects for NCD‐related health outcomes. In this paper we submit this hypothesis to extensive empirical scrutiny, covering a global set of countries from 1980–2008, and applying a range of estimation procedures. Our results indicate that urbanization appears to have contributed to an increase in average BMI and cholesterol levels: the implied difference in average total cholesterol between the most and the least urbanized countries is 0.40 mmol/L, while people living in the least urbanized countries are also expected to have an up to 2.3 kg/m2 lower BMI than in the most urbanized ones. Moreover, the least urbanized countries are expected to have an up to 3.2 p.p. lower prevalence of diabetes among women. This association is also much stronger in the low and middle‐income countries, and is likely to be mediated by energy intake‐related variables, such as calorie and fat supply per capita.

Chronic Diseases and Labor Market Outcomes in Egypt

By causing a sizeable reduction in employment 6 percent and labor supply 19 percent, chronic diseases are responsible for a major efficiency loss in the Egyptian economy. Furthermore the impact of chronic diseases on the labor market is not uniformly distributed. The older and the less educated suffer a larger drop in the probability of being employed and in their supply of working hours. The authors estimate the reduced form equations of individual employment status, labor supply and the usual wage equation. They control for unobserved ability and individual preferences by means of a within-siblings estimator. Measurement errors in our self-reported health variable have been accounted for.

Fruit and vegetable consumption in the former Soviet Union: the role of individual- and community-level factors

Objective To explain patterns of fruit and vegetable consumption in nine former Soviet Union countries by exploring the influence of a range of individual- and community-level determinants. Design Cross-sectional nationally representative surveys and area profiles were undertaken in 2010 in nine countries of the former Soviet Union as part of the Health in Times of Transition (HITT) study. Individual- and area-level determinants were analysed, taking into account potential confounding at the individual and area level. Setting Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine. Subjects Adult survey respondents (n 17 998) aged 18–95 years. Results Being male, increasing age, lack of education and lack of financial resources were associated with lower probability of consuming adequate amounts of fruit or vegetables. Daily fruit or vegetable consumption was positively correlated with the number of shops selling fruit and vegetables (for women) and with the number of convenience stores (for men). Billboard advertising of snacks and sweet drinks was negatively related to daily fruit or vegetable consumption, although the reverse was true for billboards advertising soft drinks. Men living near a fast-food outlet had a lower probability of fruit or vegetable consumption, while the opposite was true for the number of local food restaurants. Conclusions Overall fruit and vegetable consumption in the former Soviet Union is inadequate, particularly among lower socio-economic groups. Both individual- and community-level factors play a role in explaining inadequate nutrition and thus provide potential entry points for policy interventions, while the nuanced influence of community factors informs the agenda for future research.

On the Efficiency Costs of De‐tracking Secondary Schools in Europe

Many European countries have delayed the time when school tracking starts in order to pursue equality of opportunity. What are the efficiency costs of de-tracking secondary schools? This paper builds a stylized model of the optimal time of tracking, estimates the relevant parameters using micro data for 11 European countries and computes the efficiency loss of tracking earlier or later than the efficient time. We find that this loss is moderate, and equal on average to half percent of GDP.

The Labour Market Effects of Academic and Vocational Education Over the Life Cycle: Evidence from Two British Cohorts

Several commentators have argued that the short-term advantage of vocational versus academic education, which is a smoother school-to-work transition, trades off with long-term disadvantages, which are lower employment and/or lower wages. Using data based on the careers of individuals born in the United Kingdom in 1958, we find evidence of a trade-off, but only for real wages and only for the group with lower vocational education. These results are confirmed when the careers of individuals born in 1970 are examined. The presence of a trade-off does not imply, however, that individuals with vocational education have lower long-term utility.